Abortion Access Still Difficult After Historic Mexico Ruling Fabiola Sanchez - The Associated Press
go to original March 8, 2022

Women hold an abortion-rights demonstration on the Day for Decriminalization of Abortion, one with a sign that reads in Spanish “Neither dead nor imprisoned,” in Mexico City (AP/Ginnette Riquelme)

Six months after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional, a hospital in the southern state of Guerrero refused to perform an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim.

The case is a recent example of what abortion advocates warned of after the high court’s ruling last year: until each state reforms its penal code there will continue being obstacles to safe and legal abortions in much of the country.

It was only after the Guerrero girl’s case drew media attention and lawmakers and activists intervened that Guerrero’s health secretary cleared the way for her abortion last month.

Guerrero is one of Mexico’s 26 states where changes have still not been made to state legal codes following the Supreme Court ruling in September. In January three state lawmakers submitted a proposed bill to do just that.

The girl’s case roiled Guerrero in February. The girl from a remote mountain community was raped by a family member, who is also a minor.

Her grandparents and an aunt went to the state prosecutor’s office and then to a hospital in Chilpancingo, the state capital. Doctors there refused, noting that she was more than 12 weeks pregnant and it could risk her health, an assertion advocates disputed.

The refusal became a polemic in the state.

The Roman Catholic Church, which remains influential in Guerrero, voiced objections to the girl having an abortion.

Rev. Salvador Rangel Mendoza, bishop for the Chilpancingo-Chilapa diocese, said it shouldn’t have been allowed, because life must be respected. He said the state’s health secretary “committed a murder.”

Rangel Mendoza noted “sociocultural circumstances” that lead to sexual abuse within families. “They go against an innocent creature, and why not against the person who impregnated her? Where is that person? He’s going to continue impregnating girls.”

Authorities opened an investigation, but advocates involved in the case said the other minor was not in custody.

Read the rest at WPRI

Related: WHO Issues New Guidelines on Abortion to Help Countries Deliver Lifesaving Care (World Health Organization)

Related: Online Abortion Provider Razel Remen: ‘Telemedicine Abortion Is Safe and Reliable’ (Ms.)